No, This Isn't The Problem, Either

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I guess I'm supposed to be rolling around in schadenfreude at the news that Karl Rove has found a new brand of cheap aluminum siding to sell to the rubes and suckers of what is laughingly referred to as the Republican Establishment. It seems that the money boys are getting tired of losing winnable Senate races because the Help keeps hiring candidates out of the Chronic ward, so Karl's going to (reluctantly) take their money this time to teach them how to craft winning campaigns on the general theme of Ix-Nay on the Apey-ray. That the Republican party actually should need to pay someone to explain this to its candidates is a measure of a rather more systemic problem. That the feral children in the wilder precincts are birthing cows all over the landscape is entertaining as all hell, but it doesn't move us any greater distance along toward the day when we once again will have two sane political parties.

First of all, if they put all this time and effort in and, say, Steve King still gets the senatorial nomination in Iowa, which I make as no worse than 6-5 at this point, what's Plan B? Rove's credibility at the grassroots is next to nothing any more, and his endorsement -- or that of his organization -- is close to worthless now, but another bad cycle out in the states, and he may well take up residence at the Old Geniuses Home next door to Pat Caddell.

"We're concerned about Steve King's Todd Akin problem," Mr. Law said. "This is an example of candidate discipline and how it would play in a general election. All of the things he's said are going to be hung around his neck."

And about this, you are going to do exactly what? American Crossroads is going to "discipline" candidates now? Says who? And how, exactly, do you plan to do it? Who are you guys when you're at home, anyway?

Secondly, the overall problem remains. In this particular dispute, the Republicans seem to be arguing over whether they will be the Party Of Plutocracy or the Party Of The Stupid Rapey Guys. Will they represent the interests that stole most of the economy and wrecked what was left, or will they be the party of the people obsessed with snowflake Jeebus zygotes? In actual fact, Paul Ryan's economic ideas are no less extreme in their own way than are Todd Akin's ruminations on ladyparts. I would note that there seem to be more conservative Republicans out there who are both anti-bailout and anti-choice than there are conservative Republicans out in the country who are pro-bailout and anti-choice. Who is the party's primary constituency supposed to be, since whoever Rove's group lines up behind is going to be driven by the constituency, and not the other way around.

Time was when the "Republican establishment" was represented by the Wall Street faction of moderates, the guys who got swamped by the Goldwater revolution and never resurfaced again. Wall Street is now the province of crooks and sharpers. (It's not the Tea Party that's trying to castrate the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. It's "establishment Republicans" like Mitch McConnell, and they're not acting out of fear of the The Base. They're acting in the interest of the mountebanks in the new financial establishment, all of them independent political actors.) That's the faction that greased the way for Willard Romney, who was only marginally a more effective candidate nationally than Richard Mourdock was in Indiana.

I made the point a couple of times during the campaign that there is no real Republican establishment any more.
Now, the party -- and, especially, the conservative movement that is really its only intellectual energy -- is a constellation of well-financed interest groups and independent grassroots activists seething for the main chance. None of them is in a position to dictate terms to any of the others. Few of them depend on any of the others to survive. Shelly Adelson is going to do what he wants, and he doesn't have to care what the RNC thinks about it. The people of Iowa are going to nominate Steve King, and what are Karl Rove and the millionnaires he's suckered this time around going to do about it?

Because of this dynamic, the Republicans do not have the infrastructure in place to create the kind of transformation the party needs to regain its equilibrium. All it's got are the crazy people on one side, and the people who just want to make a buck on the other. Good luck with that.